What the —! Well it occured to me, and not for the first time, that a lot of people really don’t understand my Social Security project and particularly what even some of my friends and allies think is a narrow focus on the nuts, bolts and numbers of Social Security financial reporting. It seems to […]

Total Security on Planet Elsinore: a Social Security Thought Game (Part 1) – Set the gameboard and initial rules for Total Security or TS for short. To recap the USE a democratic republic polity on Planet Elsinore has a long established government retirement security program called Total Security paid for by an across the income […]

Lets play a game. The ultimate point of the game is to understand certain aspects of Social Security but to keep complications from creeping in too early (wait for later parts) we are going to start with simple game play on a board far, far away. In fact on distant yet oddly Earth-like Planet Elsinore. […]

Via the ?Real News:  Privitization of the Royal Mail Service Interview of John Weeks,( a professor emeritus of the University of London and author of the forthcoming book The Economics of the 1%: How Mainstream Economics Serves the Rich, Obscures Reality and Distorts Policy). Brings to mind this process: Grim outlook of US post office buildings: Currently, […]

Dean Baker was polite in responding to another story from the Washington Post in the campaign to discredit the program: That’s what the headline of the front page Washington Post story might have read if the purpose was to inform readers. Instead the lengthy piece (which covers the whole back page) told readers that Social […]

CORP. TAX CUT = GROWTH? Um, Not So Much — Contrary to popular conservative dogma, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has found no substantial correlation between corporate tax reductions and economic growth since 1947.

by Dale Coberly How to Sound Insane by Talking Like a Bi Partisan Expert on Social Security I apologize for the next couple of paragraphs because they sound overworked and insane,  but that’s what happens when you try to illustrate the way Washington talks about Social Security. Try to imagine you have to buy a medicine […]

AB had a post on Congressman Steve King, an advocate of austerity and shut down yet received $9.17 billion in subsidies 1995-2012 for his district without offering cut backs for his district to share the sacrifices needed for austerity. Brad DeLong points us to another stunning set of subsidies, this example for Congressman Tim Huelskamp: […]

by Linda Beale Religious rights, taxes, and corporatism–whose rights are they? Part I The United States has a tradition of separation of church and state that goes back to the founding discussions that concluded that it would be inappropriate to establish a state religion because individuals should be at liberty to believe or not believe.  […]

From the Financial Times (pay wall I believe): Investors warn moves to curb climate change will hit fuel demand October 24, 2013 By Ed Crooks Investors managing assets worth about $3tn have written to the world’s largest oil, gas and coal companies, calling on them to prepare for a possible decline in demand for fossil […]